Michael and Laura Hild outside one of their Hull Street properties (Photo by Jay Paul)

For the first half of the 20th century, Manchester bustled with shoppers enjoying department stores, restaurants and movie theaters in a thriving commercial corridor. But as residents moved to the suburbs, and retail stores relocated to malls in the 1960s and ’70s, the area gave way to abandoned buildings and vacant lots.

To be sure, there are bright spots along the Hull Street corridor. The restaurant Croaker’s Spot, for one, opened a location there in 2009, and it thrives. Caribbean Chef and Shaved Ice are also there. Now, for the first time in more than 50 years, the corridor will experience commercial and residential development on a large scale.

The people behind the transformation are Michael and Laura Hild of Church Hill Ventures. In 2018, the Hilds will open at least four businesses on Hull — a doughnut shop, Hot Diggity Donuts; a neighborhood market and cafe, The Butterbean; a brewpub in the former Thalhimers building; and an unnamed project slated for the former Siegel’s Supermarket.

“The first thing we tell everyone is that we want to add to the neighborhood,” Michael Hild says. “We’re not here to move anybody out. We want to bring people in. So every building we are fixing up is a building that was abandoned or was a shell.”

The business concepts are all part of a long-term vision, one that’s already more than five years in the making. Hild estimates that he owns around 30 properties in the area. And each purchase, some with years of back taxes, liens and family trust issues, was a complex undertaking.

Improving the neighborhood while keeping it accessible for current residents is a priority, and he and Culinary Director Dan Scherotter are committed to hiring from within the community, offering a living wage and providing improved housing options, with a select number of apartments ranging between $900 to $1,100 a month.

Hild says the history of Hull Street fascinates him. It was one of the busiest shopping corridors in Richmond, with its own Christmas parade and Fourth of July celebration. “We don’t have to come in and reinvent something,” he says. “It’s already there, we just need to remember it.”

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